TURMOIL IN THE MIDEAST: STRATEGY; To Disarm Shadowy Guerrilla Army, Israeli Air Power May Not Be Enough

By THOM SHANKER

Published: July 20, 2006

With its bombardment of Lebanon, Israel aims to accomplish the military goals of eliminating Hezbollah's ability to fire missiles over the border, cutting its lines of resupply from Syria or Iran and demonstrating -- under pain of chaos -- the cost to the Lebanese government of allowing the militant group to operate freely from its territory.

But recent combat history provides a chastening lesson that air power, regardless of its accuracy and punch, cannot defeat even a conventional adversary unless it is backed by ground forces. Thus, American military analysts monitoring the conflict caution that Israel may be unable to reach its goal of disarming a shadowy guerrilla army by missiles, bombs and long-range artillery alone.

To that end, small numbers of Israeli commandos already have entered Lebanon, senior Israeli officials acknowledged Wednesday, and more ground forces may be sent in.

The Israeli Defense Forces are ''right now doing pinpointed entries into south Lebanon to deal with Hezbollah locations,'' said one senior Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing his nation's classified military planning.

Israel is wary of replicating its demoralizing, 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon, and there are no plans for ''clear and hold'' missions, these officials said. Instead, once their tactical objectives are reached in missions aimed at clearing the rocky, cavernous, bunker-laden terrain of militants and their arsenals, Israeli forces would return home.

Then it would be up to Lebanese troops, perhaps with assistance from an international force, to fill the security vacuum under the Israeli plan, the Israeli official said.

Geoffrey Kemp, a Middle East expert who served on the staff of the National Security Council under President Reagan, said that while it may not be possible for the Israelis to destroy Hezbollah completely, especially through bombardment alone, ''They can degrade that guerrilla army's capacity to inflict unacceptable pain on Israeli civilians and Israeli cities with rockets.''

But even a successful conclusion of the current military effort in southern Lebanon cannot resolve Israel's broader security problems, he cautioned.

''The Palestinian suicide bombers were much more effective than these rockets have ever been,'' said Mr. Kemp, who is now director of regional strategic programs for the Nixon Center, a Washington policy institute.

Over the past week of fighting, after Hezbollah forces captured two Israeli soldiers, Israeli forces have carried out air and artillery strikes to degrade Hezbollah military capabilities in southern Lebanon. The attacks focused first on rockets and launchers.

''We are still working through our original targeting menus, but we are chasing these strategic missiles as we find them,'' said the Israeli official. ''This is our first priority -- and it will take weeks, not days.''

American military officers who study the missile threat noted that Israel faced significant problems in countering Hezbollah's arsenal. Even with perfect missile defenses -- which do not exist -- the short-range weapons that have struck northern Israel follow such a brief trajectory that they are nearly impossible to hit. For those short-range rockets, and the longer-range missiles that have struck Haifa, the Israeli tactic is not to defend by bringing them down in flight, but to hit their launchers in hiding or immediately as they are rolled into the open before firing, which requires persistent and detailed surveillance.

More broadly, Israel also has sent its missiles and artillery shells into Hezbollah outposts, weapons depots and command posts, aiming at troops and ammunition buried in the rocky Lebanese terrain. The goal is to create less a cordon sanitaire than an empty zone to be refilled by forces, either Lebanese or international, capable of preventing Hezbollah from returning within striking range of Israel.

To destroy Hezbollah's ability to plan and communicate, the neighborhood in southern Beirut that served as the unofficial Hezbollah capital has been pounded; Israeli officials acknowledge that this is part of an attempt to strike directly at the organization's leadership, as well as to disarm its fighters and dismantle its support infrastructure.

In addition, to keep weapons from reaching Hezbollah, a number of road links and bridges to Syria, and Beirut's airport, have been hit, as Israeli warships impose a quarantine of the Lebanese coast. To the same end, Israeli officials are demanding that a stringent monitoring regime be put into place along all entry points to Lebanon.

But the Israeli military campaign is intertwined with another goal aimed at the Lebanese government and civilian population, in the view of some American experts. ''That is to create enough pain on the ground so there would be a local political reaction to Hezbollah's adventurism,'' said Edward P. Djerejian, who formerly was the American ambassador to both Israel and Syria.

Mr. Djerejian, now director of Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, warned that, ultimately, there was no military solution to reduce the security threats to Israel -- and that the Israeli leadership understood it had a limited time to achieve its current military goals.

''There is only a certain window of time before the international community truly weighs in,'' he said.

Until the United States and other nations decide to pressure Israel to rein in its attacks, Israel itself must weigh the impact of bombarding civilian infrastructure targets and even legitimate Hezbollah operations centers within residential areas. These attacks could quickly undermine any potential for the Lebanese government, and its population, to support actions to constrain Hezbollah.

''Everybody understands the Israelis want to degrade Hezbollah's ability as a military fighting force and as an organization capable of launching missiles into Israel,'' said Theodore H. Kattouf, a former American ambassador to Syria.

''I believe they want to turn the Lebanese people -- those outside of the true believers within the Shia community -- against Hezbollah,'' he added. ''I think they are quite misguided in the policy they are following. These attacks are, if anything, making people feel somewhat less hostile to Hezbollah and more convinced in their dislike of Israel.''